Day 4 : Crash & Duck

This morning we were travelling along the express-way (think M25) heading to work and someone ran into our taxi from behind. The drivers procedded to stop in the middle of the 3-lane road and have a heated argument with half of Beijing behind us getting very angry. After they had got it out of their system they both got back in their cars and we drove off – no details exchanged, I guess insurance doesn’t work in quite the same way here!

In the evening we went out to eat a local speciality – Beijing Duck at the famous restaurant Quanjude. Here you can see waitress no. 0247 (they don’t have names!) demonstrating how to wrap the duck meet with vegetables and sauce into small “lotus leaf pancakes” (skins). It was seriously delicious, very filling, and probably equally bad for you 😉 At the end they give you a card showing your “duck number” – mine was the 1.15 hundred millionth duck (.300408) they had served since 1864!

Originally from the UK, David is designer and wanderer currently based in Tokyo. Prior to this, he lived in China and still returns frequently to continue exploring this vast and varied land. He started Randomwire in 2003 to chronicle his travels and occasional musings. Feel free to drop him a line.

Haha~ I don't remember the “duck number” when I was there. Maybe it was ten years ago, but I miss “Quanjude”'s duck…

What happened on the express way is common for me. I've been in that situation several times, but not on the express way. Well, what does the insurance work in the UK? Here we just report to the insurance company about what has happened and show them the damaged car. I guess it is so, though I've never done that before. hehe~

Anyway, I hope that'll never happen again, at least not on the express way. Then you can get out of the car and get into another easily without being annoyed by the argument.

Ushi – Yeah, thatâ€™s me; even pixilated you can still see my receding hairline! I thought I'd spare the world seeing my face at least! Yeah, the taxi was slightly damaged but nothing major. It felt worse than it looked!

Jessie – In the UK if you have an accident the person whose fault it was has to pay the other driver to repair the damage – out of their insurance. Doesn't seem to be the case in China!